MA in Anthropology

The MA Anthropology programme provides you with a solid basis in the fundamentals of anthropology, followed by an option to specialise by choosing specific pathways, guided by expert, international staff with a range of complementary specialities. Current pathways include:

• Social Anthropology - studying social aspects of human cultural life, politics, kinship, belief systems and material worlds;
• Evolutionary Anthropology - studying the evolution and ecology of human behaviour, and its application to human health and social welfare.

Specific student topics within these pathways have included the anthropology of conflict and development, reproduction and health, kinship and family formation, applied and business anthropology, social networks and collective behaviour, and material culture. Regional expertise includes sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, the Pacific, and Southern Europe.

The structure of the degree programme has been designed to engage you in a cumulative process of developing skills and knowledge through a sequence of complementary stages.

In Teaching Block 1 you will develop foundational knowledge and understanding of social science research methods and issues through the major methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of human society. This teaching block offers mandatory units in anthropological research methods and theoretical debates within the discipline. By the end of Teaching Block 1 you will be able to evaluate and apply anthropological methods and key theoretical traditions, and will have an understanding of the relationship between anthropology and the social and human sciences.

In Teaching Block 2 you will have a range of regional and thematic options. At least half of these options must be in anthropology. The others may be from related disciplines (eg archaeology, theology, social policy and health, or sociology). You will develop the skills to make connections between the theoretical, methodological and regional and thematic studies. By the end of Teaching Block 2 you should have a broad understanding of anthropological concerns in a number of specific subject areas and/or regions of the world, and be able to relate these to the theoretical and methodological studies carried out in Block 1.

The dissertation represents the culmination of your progress through the degree programme, as you apply the appropriate technical, methodological and intellectual skills to a piece of research devised in consultation with and supervised by one or more staff advisors.

Extracurricular activities complement the degree programme, offering you the opportunity to meet with researchers in the field and keep abreast of current research. Activities include seminars, research group discussions, ethnographic film screenings and fieldtrips.